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Awards Programs: Submitting Your Site For Awards

Written By: Richard Lowe

All right, you’ve got a nice site. You’ve worked long and hard to make it asgood as you can. Now you want to get a little recognition for your efforts.You want someone to take a look at what you’ve accomplished and tell you ifyou’ve done a good job.

You can submit your site to awards programs to have it reviewed by otherwebmasters. There are literally thousands (and probably tens of thousands)of awards available all over the internet. Some are easy to win – all youhave to do is send in your site and you get the award. These are about asfulfilling as white bread.

Some awards programs are exceptionally difficult to win. You have to have aperfect (literally) site to even get close to winning. These areexceptionally frustrating as most of us are not perfect at everything.However, winning one (even a “bronze”) can make you feel like you are on topof the world.

Most awards programs are run by webmasters who honestly want to examineother sites and reward their creators in some small way for their efforts.These awardmasters generally will not spend a long time looking at your site(although you will find some who spend hours examining each entry), but theywill look at least for a few minutes.

How do you submit your site to awards programs? Well, first you have to findsites which give out awards. The absolute best place to look ishttp://www.awardsites.com – there is no better list of awards programs. Myadvice is to go there and submit your site to as many programs as you seefit.

Okay, so you’ve found an award that you want to get. Perhaps it has a nicegraphic image (always looks good to have some interesting award images on aweb site) or perhaps it just appeals to you for some other reason. Now what?

Look over the site. Why? After all, the only thing you want to do is submityour site and move on, right? Well, there is an implicit exchange involvedin awards programs. You see, the awardmaster is typically going to spendsome time examining your site to see if it measures up to the criteria. Inother words, he is going to look over your site. The least you can do isspend a few minutes checking out what he’s done.

Once you’ve spent a few minutes or longer on the site, it’s a nice touch tosign the guestbook. Now, no awards programs which is worth anything requiresthat a guestbook be signed as part of the criteria, and don’t expect it tohelp you win, but it’s a nice touch as it finishes your exchange. You areasking someone to do some work for you so you can win, so why not make himor her feel good while you are asking?

This is the critical step that many people miss. You see, most people whosubmit their sites for awards want to do it fast and furious. They burrowthrough a site – straight for the awards submission page, enter the data andlet fly. Within a few seconds they move on to the next award.

That’s the wrong way to do it. No, read the criteria and look at your sitewith a critical eye. Let’s say the criteria says, “good HTML code” and yoursite was created with Frontpage or the GeoCities site editor. Your chancesof winning are highly reduced, because neither of these producesparticularly good code.

Sometimes it will be pretty obvious that you should not submit your site.The criteria says the site has to be made by a woman, and you are a man, forinstance. Or the awardmaster wants science fiction sites and your’s is abouthow to make money from the internet. Don’t waste everyone’s time – pleaseread the criteria.

Sometimes it’s a bit more difficult. Let say the criteria says, “text mustbe easy to read.” Well, step back and take a look at your site. Is the textlight pink on a dark pink background? It’s not easy to read. Or perhaps thecriteria says, “usable navigation on every page.” Does your site have usablenavigation? Maybe the criteria says, “You must provide an obvious way toturn off any music.” Well, do you?

Correct anything that you feel like fixing, making a best guess as to theawardmasters intention. Once you feel your site is up-to-snuff, then goahead and submit it.

You see what happens if you approach award programs from the properdirection? Your site gets better. You are taking the “advice” of dozens oreven hundreds of webmasters and determining if you agree or disagree. If youagree (you want to submit your site to the award), then you make the change.If not, you move on.

An in reality, that’s what awards programs are all about. They are a way toimprove websites and make the internet a better place for us all.